Dr Kelly Fleming

The person who had the most impact on my life was Grundy.

Grundy was my grandma’s name to my brother and I. As the story goes, my brother who is older than me could not say grandma and it came out Grundy, so that was our name for her.

Grundy had an awesome sense of humour. She had an infectious laugh. She would say something out of the blue and everyone would be bent over laughing. When she finally caught her breath, she’d stop and everything would go quiet and she’d say “what were we laughing about?” And of course that would just make everyone start laughing again.

Grundy was a proper lady but you never knew what she would say. She didn’t swear but you never knew what would pop out of her mouth or off her hands when she signed.

Grundy had a great love of chocolate that was inherited by most of our family.

She lived her entire life in a nearby city so we’d often go to see her or when we were younger she would come to visit us on the bus. She never learnt to drive.

One day I went with my Mum to the bus depot to pick up Grundy who was coming to spend the weekend. She hurried to the car. She only had one walking pace – turbo!

She hopped into the car and didn’t even realize I was in the backseat. She turned to Mum and said “Oh Sharon, Sharon, quick quick, we must go to Laura Secord (a famous Canadian chocolate shop) right away, I accidentally ate all the kids’ chocolate I bought them while I was on the bus!”

Mum looked at her with a straight face that was ready to burst into laughter and said, “Mum, how did you accidentally eat their chocolate?”

I was watching this whole conversation from the backseat and I was laughing so hard as the story unfolded.

“Well,” said Grundy, “you know it’s a long bus ride (yeah, one long hour!), and well, I reached into my purse to get something and I pulled out one of the chocolate bars.”

Mum still kept a straight face and said “so of course, you ate it.”

Grundy said, “well it was in my hand and the next thing I knew, all that was in my hand was the empty wrapper.”

Mum looked at her and said, “That’s ONE chocolate bar.” Without missing a beat, Grundy said, “yes, yes, the first one was…”

By this time tears were rolling down my face from laughing. You need to remember, this was the 1970s and we had very large cars back then. You could put half the neighbourhood in them and we often did! So Grundy still didn’t realize I was in the backseat watching this conversation.

With the most innocent face, she continued, “Well Sharon, I just don’t know what happened. My hand just kept going into my purse throughout the bus ride and when I was almost here, I was double checking that I hadn’t forgotten anything and all the chocolate was gone! Just disappeared!”

Mum said, “So we know where it disappeared to… You ate it!”

Grundy said, “How did you know that?”

Mum said, “When you jumped into the car, and out of breath you said quick, quick, we need to go to Laura Secord, I accidentally ate all the kids’ chocolate!”

Grundy started to laugh and said, “Oh my, I did say that, didn’t I? Well, go, quick, we need to get chocolate.”

I was laughing so much and so hard that I accidentally kicked the back of the seat and Grundy turned around and said, “Oh I didn’t know you were there.” I said, “That’s ok, quick, we need to go to Laura Secord!”

By that time all three of us were laughing.

Grundy loved life. She lived every day as if it were the only day of her life. She was the daughter of an immigrant and I remember her clearly telling me when I was quite young.

“They can take your money, they can take your home and all your possessions but the one thing they can’t take is your mind. Get the best education you can, learn everything you can, that will be your most precious possession.”

I did exactly that. I got a good education. I studied for 25 years, several Masters degrees and 5 doctorate degrees. I’ve written books, articles and many other publications.

Grundy never gave up. She had a difficult life but she wanted for me what she couldn’t have for herself or give to my Mum – an education.

I’m proud that I inherited Grundy’s love of life, her laughter, her off the cuff sense of humour.

I lived with her for 3 months in 1992 and it was the greatest experience I had ever had up to that time. I learnt so much from her during those 3 months.

Many years later, she asked me to officiate at her funeral and I told her it would be an honour for me. I asked her to sum up her life in one sentence and she said “I did it my way.”

Then she said, “I know it’s a rather odd request but could you find the song “I did it my way” by Frank Sinatra and play it at my funeral?”

Of course I did, well, my hearing partner found it online and downloaded it for me to play.

The strange thing about it was I had never asked her that before but someone had asked me to sum up my life about 10 years before and I said “I did it my way.”

Dedicated to Grundy

1921-2014